Life on Mars: Season 2. Episode 6

 "Yeah, they come over here, they take our bullets..."

It's no coincidence, I think, that Life on Mars leaves it until so close to the end to do a big, full-fat racism episode, full of casual bigotry from Gene and the gang. This is the one thing where, even given the 1973 context, in a 2007 programme we need to know the characters well to accept this kind of thing. In the end, though, the whole subject is dealt with sensitively and well, and even with some romantic musing over music, exile and the contemorary plight of Ugandan Asians, one year after Idi Amin expelled them. It would have sat better, I think, from a South Asian writer, but Guy Jenkin does a good job.

Gene and Ray keep the casual racism flying to Sam's dismay, as the temporal culture clash reaches its peak here. This is good character stuff for Sam but nicely balanced in not going too far with Gene.

It's also the wittiest episode for a while, with Gene in particular getting some superb lines. After it seems they've used up all the coma-related 2006 plot points we get a good one as, this time, Maya slowly decides to give up on Sam- just as the plot concerns her rather groovy parents. It also works well as a whodunit that doesn't cheat, and even develops Gene by giving him a brother addicted to speed. It also has the finest ferret scene I've yet to see on television, and Sam getting to interrogate his girlfriend's father.

It's a standout episode, again not written by a showrunner. It's also, I suspect, our last one-off whodunit as the end approaches...

Life on Mars: Season 2, Episode 5

"Is it Gene Hunt? Is he kicking in a nonce?"

Oh my. This episode is devilishly clever, and may be my favourite yet, not only using the format to do fun things with the fourth wall (irresistible in a series with a premise like this), but to do creative things with structure too, and with unreliable narrators (and, in the case of Graham Bathurst's arrest, unreliable camera angles) all over the place. There's even a structural nod to Rashomon. I love it. And bloody hell, it's only by Matthew Graham, by whom I'd been rather unimpressed until now.

Of course, the Camberwick Green sequence is awesome and rightly adored, but it says a lot for the episode as a whole that it's not overshadowed by this. Sam has had an overdose in 2006 / spiked drink in 1973, and we have a trippiness to the whole episode, where things are not what they seem. Yet, on the other hand, the episode functions as a wonderfully structured and dramatic double whodunit that doesn’t cheat and is full of satisfying twists. 

These two sides of the episode are brought nicely together by Sam coming into the case late, with an outsider’s perspective, and how everything hinges on another case from last year. This allows Sam to interview his colleagues and examine various angles on the case alongside us, the viewers. 

Last episode gave us an aspect of the 70s- swinging- as theme; this episode gives us structural cleverness. Taken together, they’re exactly what Life on Mars should be doing. Superb telly.

Doctor Who: Victory of the Daleks

“If Hitler invaded Hell, I would give a favourable reference to the Devil.”

Oh dear. I’m terribly sorry, but my opinions on this story are awfully conventional. I’m really sorry. I can’t help it. I hate it when this sort of thing happens. But yes; I’m rather afraid this is going to be one of those “Ian McNeice is a little too over the top” “New Daleks are crap” / “They got those Spitfires into space awfully quickly, cool though they are” / “The coda with Bracewell’s emotions stopping him going off was a bit pants” reviews. Actually, shall we just take all that as read and get on with something more interesting? Except the new Daleks, obviously. I’m going to have a good whinge about those.

So, it’s a very well-realised London in the Blitz, and an… interesting Churchill. Unfortunate how this was rather close to Brendan Gleeson’s far superior portrayal of the great man in Into the Storm, but there you go. We get CGI barrage balloons again, which is all nice and nostalgic, and lots of iconic Cabinet War Rooms stuff. It’s huge fun to see those khaki Daleks with their Union Flags and “Would you care for some tea?”, although so far this series seems to be doing an awful lot of flag-waving. First an archetypal English village, then Starship UK, now this- is this Moffat’s new British Agenda? I think we should be told.

We get a brief retread of Power of the Daleks for the first ten minutes, rather appropriately- after all, if Tennant could have a remake of Evil of the Daleks then why can’t Smith have a version of their other excellent David Whitaker-penned outing? This doesn’t go on for long, though.

Some interesting arc stuff, though; the Doctor calls Amy “Amelia” when he’s annoyed with her. And for some reason she can’t remember the Daleks, or those whopping great big planets in the sky. Our attention is drawn to this, so it must be significant.

But this set-up is all, of course, just a trap. The one surviving Dalek ship to escape the Doctor-Donna has found a “Progenitor”, with which they can make baby Daleks. Yes, Dalek sex really is that boring. Thing is, though, it really brings home the creepy genocidal nature of the Daleks that this Progenitor thinks they’re racially impure, and won’t even recognise them as fellow Daleks without the “testimony” of their greatest enemy. Worse, the Daleks willingly acquiesce in their own ethnic cleansing at the hands of the new “pure” Daleks. Possibly the most chilling example yet of the horrors of Dalek ideology, and a reminder of how appropriate it is that they should feature in a story set during the Second World War.

Shame the new Daleks are so awful, though. I mean, literally everyone thinks so. What were they thinking? I don’t care how much mentioning there is of things like “rels” and “time corridors” and “the final end.” They’re not even shaped like Daleks. I want my Daleks back!

The Daleks win, of course; they’re now out there, breeding baby Daleks in that strange U-certificate way of theirs, and for the first time since the stories returned they’re no longer an endangered species. But presumably they won’t be returning until they can sort out the horrible new Daleks.

We end with more emphasis on Amy’s forgetting the Daleks, and another crack. The story had some genuinely cool moments, and really treats the Daleks well script-wise, but there are all those little things wrong with it. 3/5, then. Never mind, I’ve already seen the first part of the two-parter that’s up next (I’m on a roll this week), and it’s way, way better.

Doctor Who: The Beast Below

“I’m the bloody Queen, mate. Basically, I rule.”

So, Matt Smith’s first story in space and in the future. The UK, on a rock, floating in space. Devon. Surrey. There’ll be a Leicestershire somewhere. Probably infested with the bloody space BNP, knowing us.

This is a future Britain where it’s forever the 1950’s; there’s even a Magpie Electricals. And the 1950s classroom is made terrifying by the ever-reliable Steven Moffat, with just a circus-like creature in a booth and the three words “Bad boy, Timmy.” I’ll go on about this properly later on, but this is effectively The Happiness Patrol done much better, and with much more successful imagery. I mean, which is the scarier icon, Bertie Bassett or a post-Life on Mars test card girl?

I love the new theme. It’s similar, but not too similar, to the Trial of a Time Lord theme, but creepier. And the title sequence is great too. I’m liking this new era so far. I’m certainly loving our two leads. How can anyone not love the shot of Amy flying, in space, anchored to reality only be the Doctor’s hand on her ankle? Fairytale indeed.

Time to come down to Earth, though. I’m no continuity obsessive (Er, that’ll be my inner twelve year old child. Not me, guv.), but the Moff has got is facts wrong! Solar flares? In the 29th century? I think this is supposed to evoke The Ark in Space, but the Nerva Beacon was only built in the 29th century, during the time of Revenge of the Cybermen. Tsk. Stop looking at me like that. No, really.

You’ve got to love companions’ first stories, not least for the cobblers the Doctor can only get away with spouting at these times. “We are observers only,” he says. “That’s the one rule I’ve stuck to in all my travels. I never get involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets.” Then he goes straight out of the TARDIS to comfort a little girl, irrevocably involving himself. And this is even integral to the resolution of the plot. Moffat, you’re brilliant.

This is a great introduction to our new Doctor and his eccentricities. The reasoning as to why this world of red phone boxes and lollipop ladies is such a repressive police state, the glass of water on the floor, the warnings about “escaped fish”- this is unmistakeably the Doctor, but just as unmistakably not the last one.

Amy, who is 1,306 and long dead, has her first thoughts about a wedding, “A long time ago, tomorrow morning”, that she’s clearly terrified by. But this doesn’t impede her sense of adventure, and neither does that Death to the Daleks-y root thing.

And the Doctor meets the mysterious, masked Liz 10 and gets some answers; this impossible vessel is travelling without an engine. If this didn’t feel 2000 AD enough (and I don’t just say that because it makes me think of Pat Mills and space whales), we have a voting booth and buttons marked “Protest” and “Forget”. “And once every five years,” says the Doctor is a wonderful bit of satire, “everyone chooses to forget what they’ve learned. Democracy in action.” So he’s bringing down the government, another sign that this is basically a much-improved version of The Happiness Patrol, complete with gunge tank, but without the “camera pointed at a stage with abstract scenery” vibe. I mean, here the cameras move about a lot and everything, although it still looks a little too studio-bound. This is especially obvious in the scene where it’s revealed they’re inside a huge mouth. That asteroid in The Empire Strikes Back this ain’t. These few scenes are my only real criticism of the story, though. I mean, I even gave The Happiness Patrol a 5/5.

Liz 10’s identity is revealed as “technically not a British subject”, and someone whose family has certainly known the Doctor, in various senses (“And so much for the Virgin Queen, you bad, bad boy!”).

The big reveal is very, very clever, with the Queen simultaneously behind it all and investigating her own actions, over and over again, every ten years ago choosing between the buttons “Forget” and “Abdicate”. It’s also horrible, with the creature being horribly and constantly tortured for centuries. Amy redeems herself by working it all out, but what does it say about the Doctor that this lonely and literally tortured being is essentially a metaphor for him?

All’s well in the end, a good 5/5, and the Doctor and Amy are off to another adventure with Winston Churchill and the Daleks. But what’s that? A crack…

(Oh, and I’ve just seen that extra scene on the DVD for the first time. Fantastic!)